User:Ethan Oksen (COI)

Hi. I'm Ethan Oksen. I'm an independent communications consultant, and also in love with Wikipedia as an idea. I've previously edited as User:ethanoksen - and I will continue to edit from that account in a purely-volunteer capacity about subjects for which I have no conflict of interest. In the future I will be contributing to Wikipedia about subjects that I have a direct financial conflict of interest with - I've created this second account so as to be completely transparent in my editing. I strongly believe that communications professions can interface with Wikipedia in a way that is mutually beneficial. I believe that my mission is congruent with that of Wikipedia; I will be attempting to create neutral, encyclopedic content in areas where existing content is lacking or unbalanced. I believe that by creating neutral encyclopedic content, I'll be truly improving the encyclopedia, by providing time and research resources that would not otherwise be available to Wikipedia.

My editing
I have some previous familiarity with Wikipedia policy from my previous volunteer editing, and from a class I took while I was at the University of California, Berkeley. To make sure I have a fairly comprehensive understanding of Wikipedia's policies, I've also invested the last several weeks of time reading through Wikipedia's policies, and many discussions of those policies. I've read through hundreds of AfD's, and many discussions dealing with issues of neutrality, synthesis, and original research. I believe I have a good grasp on Wikipedia's policies, especially on those that will apply to my work. However, if you believe I've missed something relevant to my work, or you believe there is something wrong with content I've produced, please bring the issue up with me on my talk page. (I'm also quite familiar with Mediawiki syntax; I've been using it on internal projects for years.)

I will never make a change directly in article space about a subject that I have a conflict of interest with, unless it involves removing obvious vandalism or dealing with bright line BLP violations. I don't anticipate that either of these will happen very often, but when they do, I'll immediately start a talk page section explaining what I've done and declaring my conflict of interest. For minor edits, especially minor factual edits, I'll use the with an explanation of my COI attached to my request. For more comprehensive changes, I'll write drafts in my userspace and then seek feedback from my mentor, Wikiproject Cooperation's Paid Editor Help board, and the article talk page to improve them to community standards, for another community member to eventually push live.

If I'm ever in a position where one of my clients pushes me to make a set of edits that would violate the letter or spirit of Wikipedia's policies, I'll refuse to do so. This is one advantage of being an independent consultant; I can choose entirely who I conduct business with. I put the integrity of my relationship with Wikipedia first, and I will make this crystal clear to all of my Wikipedia-interested clients, before I do any Wikipedia-related work for them.

Conflict of interest declarations
I don't, as of yet, have any conflicts of interest to declare. However, when that changes, I'll list them here, as well as indicating whether they are current or previous.

Mentorship
I will request a mentor through Wikiproject Cooperation concomitantly with posting my userpage. I'll update here if/when someone agrees to mentor me.

Contacting me
For most on-wiki requests, please just use my talk page. I also have the 'email this user' function turned on; for anything that shouldn't be discussed on-wiki, feel free to drop me an email.